


then as it was, then again it will be

by 100demons



Category: Marvel (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Super Soldier serum stops working.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blind stars of fortune

It starts with, of all things, a papercut.

“Ow,” Steve says, holding up his thumb for a better look. For a cut, it looks mean and nasty, blood already trickling down his skin and towards his wrist. In the light, the blood looks too bright and fake, like someone had poured cherry cough syrup all over Cap’s hand.

“Ow,” Tony repeats dryly, looking up from his tablet. “You know, I’ve seen you get smashed in the _face_ with the lovechild of a Hummer and a tank without even a grimace. One papercut and you say _ow?_ ”

“It hurts,” Steve says absently, wiping the blood off with his handkerchief before he sticks his thumb in his mouth. Tony watches, in mute fascination, as Steve sucks his thumb, shadows forming in the hollows of his cheeks, lips red and slick with spit—

“Okay, I need to go, uh—fix—uh—I think I heard JARVIS call me haha, Dummy probably set my shop on fire gotta go!” Tony blurts out abruptly, trying to free himself out of his chair and cover his crotch with his tablet at the same time.

Steve watches him go with hooded eyes and when he pulls his thumb out of his mouth with a _pop!,_ the cut is still bleeding.

 ---

(Later, Tony will look back and curse himself for being a fool, an idiot, a self-centered narcissistic bastard. He will feel shame whenever anyone refers to him as a genius, as a hero, as a good man.)

Tony sits on the padded gym floor, trying to ignore the way his heart is making its life mission to ram itself straight through his chest. He isn’t nervous. Of course not. Tony Stark is _never_ nervous. Tony Stark is a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist and _one_ sparring session with the nation’s most eminent and attractive bachelor shouldn’t be making him feel like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush—

Tony Stark doesn’t _do_ crushes. Or anxiety. Or wet dreams about a certain blue-eyed, blond Super Soldier that leave him filled with so much _want_ that he ends up jerking off in the shower every single fucking morning like a teenager looking through a skin mag for the first time in his life. He groans and slumps onto the floor, a boneless heap.

“I hate my life,” he says to the ceiling, which politely says nothing back. “I’m supposed to be _forty_ , not fourteen! And also, the last time I checked, I was more of a breast man.”

The ceiling looks down at him impassively and Tony gives it the finger. “I get enough crap from my stupid dick so I don’t need any smart—“

“If I may interrupt your rather… scintillating conversation with the ceiling, sir?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Tony snarks. “I made you, so it stands to reason that I can _unmake_ you too, JARVIS.”

“Duly noted and ignored,” JARVIS says. “If I may point out the obvious, sir, but a sparring session requires two people to participate. Your partner seems to be missing.”

Tony bolts upright and tears the wrapping off of his knuckles. “Cap’s gone _missing?!_ Why the hell didn’t you—“

“Ah, not quite as such.” If it were at all possible for an AI to express emotion, JARVIS would sound a little apologetic. “I merely wanted to make the point that Captain Rogers is late to your scheduled session in the gymnasium.”

“Late? What time is it?”

“A quarter to four, sir.”

Tony tries to wrap his mind around the idea of Steve _ever_ being late to anything and fails. “Then where the hell has been for the past, oh, I don’t know, _half hour?_ ”

“Captain Rogers is currently resting in his room, but I’m afraid that all I can tell. He seems to have manually shut down my sensors, making contact rather difficult.”

“What is he doing in there, dying?” Tony wrinkles his nose.

“I hope not,” JARVIS replies dryly. “That would be most inconvenient.”

“Alright, cut the power to the gym and tell Dummy to get my clothes ready. I’m going to pay Mr. I’m-Always-Punctual a visit.”

“Very good, sir.”

\---

“Hey, hey, Rogers, you in there?” _Honestly_ , Tony tries to convince himself as he punches in the manual override code to open the door. Steve has it coming. Standing up Tony Stark ( _no one_ stands up Tony Stark), ignoring his gorgeous dulcet tones, being an asshole—actually, that last bit might just be him projecting, possibly—and—and—

For all that they live in the same house and fight on the same team and breathe the same air, Tony has never seen Steve sleep. But Steve’s chest is slowly rising and falling with each steady breath, uncombed hair falling over his eyes, pillows scattered all over the bed and all Tony can see and all Tony can hear is Steve and it fills up his whole vision and his whole mind, until every single bit of Anthony Edward Stark is focused on him. Even the parts of his mind that are working constantly, writing equations and dreaming up schematics and inventing strange machines—

Everything stops.

There is nothing but _Steve_.

The curve of his neck; the beautiful line of his arm, strong and hard; the sharp jut of his hip just hidden by loose cotton pants— Tony stands there, dumbstruck, a devout worshipper before a shrine.

“Oh,” Tony says, softly, and everything falls into place. It’s not just the sex and lust and the _need_ —that Tony understands, it’s all that Tony understands—but this, what Tony’s feeling right now, the way he wants to go down on his knees and give Steve the _world_ …

He doesn’t know what to call it.

“Tony? Tony, izzat you?”

“Y-yeah.” Tony clears his throat and realizes that he’s hovering over Steve’s sleepy face, so close that they might as well be touching. “I—uh. You know. You weren’t—you weren’t at practice today.”

“Oh, darn,” Steve slurs and he pulls himself up, hand on the headboard. “I didn’t realize—what time is it?”

“Oh,” Tony laughs, quick and fake. “Don’t worry about it, Cap. I guess I just wasn’t meant to be a punching bag today.”

Steve shakes his head, like a dog shaking water from his ears, and his eyes clear a little. “I’m sorry, Tony,” he says gently and it’s all Tony can do not to reach out and brush his stupid floppy golden hair out his eyes. “I was really looking forward to it and—“

“Like I said. Don’t worry about it,” Tony says dismissively. “Rain check, or whatever, right? Right. Just, you know, go back to your nap and snooze away Sleeping Beauty, I’ve got to go and check if my code finished compiling and save the day another couple of times, you know, hero stuff.” And Tony floats out the room, missing the way Steve’s dark, shadowed eyes follow him out the door.

\---

When he was four, his father had given him his very first Captain America™ action figure with fully articulated joints, a detachable shield and a tinny voice that said, “ _Take that, Hitler!_ ”

When he was six, his mother had bought him his first set of Captain America™ sheets, a limited edition Captain America™’s Shield pillow and glow in the dark stars and stripes that he had painstakingly glued onto the ceiling of his room.

When he was eight, he went on his first and last camping trip with his father. They had made it as far as the highway before they both silently agreed that it was a terrible idea and turned around, driving to the nearest five star hotel. That night, sitting right on the couch next to his father, holding onto Cap, he listened with wide eyes as he heard stories of a man who leapt from flying planes and punched Hitler _right in the face!_

When he was ten, he sat in front of the TV every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, watching Captain America punch out the Russian commies and save the girl. While he watched, he fiddled with Cap’s aging knees and repainted his fading shield.

When Tony was seventeen, his father died and Tony threw Cap in the fire in a fit of drunken rage. The smell of burning plastic is still seared into his nose.

When he is forty years old, he sees Steve Rogers fall to the ground, blood the color of cough syrup spilling from his mouth.

\---

It starts out as it always does:

Fury calls them, cold and impatient, about the next crisis the world has gotten itself into. This time, it’s a nuclear waste plant that’s threatening to become the next Chernobyl. But, predictably, it’s not just a nuclear meltdown, because a squad of goons show up with absolutely terrible fashion sense and weapons so outdated it gives Tony a headache just looking at them.

Tony heads off to the reactor chamber with Thor, Steve and Hulk covering their movements. He hacks into the systems, discovers that they’re all fucked and that they need a fuckton of water to cool down the systems since _yesterday_. He looks at Thor, who smiles and raises Mjolnir to the skies and well, Tony reflects in the moment, it’s kind of cool to have a Norse God on your side.

Soon enough, Tony and Thor pack it out of the plant, screaming fanatics at their heels, picking up Clint and Natasha on the way. Bruce has already calmed down and somehow made it back to the jet, because it’s hovering over his head, and the crisis is over, everything’s contained, that’s another tally mark for _End of the World Averted_ and Tony’s about to step on board when he realizes:

“Where’s Steve?”

And he looks down, down at the ground and he sees Steve’s bright blue figure bobbing and weaving, shield at his back. “Cap’s orders,” Natasha says and no, no, no, the jet is going the wrong direction, they’re supposed to be going _down_ , not up, there’re only four of them, they’re missing _Steve_ , Captain fucking America, what the fuck is wrong with them.

“Fuck orders,” Tony snarls and hits the thrusters because there is no way that he is leaving him—

He’s a hundred, a thousand, a million feet away when the gun goes off and Steve falls to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I have ever written something _serious_ and angsty and UGH for Avengers and it's making me break out in nervous hives.
> 
> SOMEONE SAVE ME. 
> 
> Title from the Led Zeppelin song _Ten Years Gone_ because I am lame like that and can't be original enough to think up of my own titles. (The other choices were: ANGST, FEEEEEEELLLLL IT and STEVEEEEE OH NO, so it might as well be what it is.)


	2. rivers always reach the sea

three weeks ago

He’s facing the sun, his back and head colored in by the dark with only the solid outline of his body illuminated. From here, he looks like any other man, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. He looks old and tired and when Natasha pads up behind him, her feet silent and swift, she can see a pen held in his hand and a sketchpad propped up on his thigh. A woman smiles up at Natasha from the paper, her eyes unreadable.

“She’s beautiful,” Natasha says, settling herself down on the edge of the roof; close enough that she can feel the heat his body’s giving off, but far enough so that they’re not touching.

“She was.” A thick, calloused finger traces the delicate lines, smearing the graphite. “She died of cancer a long time ago.”

Natasha is silent and for a long time, they sit together, side-by-side, watching the sun go down. The air is heavy with the weight of words unspoken.

“Her name was Peggy,” Steve finally says, just as the sun sinks past the horizon, taking all the light with it.

“Margaret Carter, the former assistant director of the Strategic Scientific Reserve and known associate of Howard Stark,” Natasha finds herself saying, the words rolling off her tongue and sliding into the air. Steve doesn’t look surprised. “She died fifteen years ago of acute amyloid leukemia.”

“I read the briefing.” Steve leans back on his arm, baring his throat, hair falling across his eyes. “Seventy years,” he says softly. “She lived and died and fought in wars and had children…all in seventy years.”

“She was a good woman.”

“I know.” Steve turns and looks at her, his blue eyes soft and clear. “It’s been what, five, six months since Fury got us together?”

Natasha resists the urge to point out that the exact count is five months, two weeks and three days. Instead, she nods in agreement.

“Maybe seven months since they dragged me out of the iceberg I was sleeping in.” He turns back to look at the glowing skyline. “To you, it’s been nearly two decades since Peggy died. To me—to me—“ He stops, abruptly, and the Adam’s apple in his throat bobs. “I talked to her right before—right before the crash. I saw her barely an hour before that. She saved me life, you know. She was right there, she was right in front of me, I—I kissed her and then—and then the next thing I know—“ Steve’s voice cuts off with a harsh rasp and the pencil in his hand snaps.

He looks down at the broken pieces, at the picture of a dead woman, at his trembling hands. Natasha looks away for a long moment, respecting his need for privacy.

“I—I’m sorry, Miss Romanoff, I didn’t mean to—“

“Natasha,” she corrects him, not ungently. “I am Natasha.”

“Natasha,” Steve repeats. “Yes, of course.” He looks at her and tries to smile, but his old, old eyes betray him.

“Thor wanted to know if you would join him for his Moving Picture night,” Natasha says, smoothly steering the conversation to safer waters.

This time, his smile looks a little more genuine. “Not tonight,” he says, picking up the shattered remnants of his pencil and carefully sliding them into a pocket. “But maybe some other time. Right now I just want to…” He pauses for a moment, searching for the right words.

“[скорбеть](http://en.bab.la/dictionary/russian-english/%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%8C),” Natasha finishes for him. “To remember, to mourn, to grieve for your fallen soldiers.”

“Thank you, Natasha.” Steve stands up and brushes the dust off of his pants before pulling her up, his grip gentle. “This—all of this—I—“

She smiles up at him but her eyes meet his and they are both the same: old, old eyes that have seen too much, in faces more appropriate for youths. “I understand,” Natasha says. “I know.”

“[скорбеть](http://en.bab.la/dictionary/russian-english/%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%8C),” he repeats, his tongue tripping over the consonants, but the meaning is all the same. “We both do.”

\---

The coffee tastes watery and cold and it looks like someone took a shit in it. He looks at the clock. The minute hand is on the five. He looks back down at his coffee. The cup is Styrofoam. His nails cut deep into the foam, until coffee threatens to leak out. He looks back up at the clock. The minute hand is still on the five.

“Your first time?”

“What?” His hand shakes and cold coffee spills all over his pants. He fumbles for the napkins in his pocket, fingers numb.

“Here,” Natasha says and hands him her own.

“I think I had my first time I long time ago,” Tony says but the joke falls flat and he wishes he had never said anything at all.

Natasha looks at him, eyes unreadable. “The first hour’s the worst,” she comments, stretching her legs out in front of her.

“We’re on our sixth,” Tony says bluntly. “I don’t think it gets any better.”

“No,” she says, looking down at her gloved hands. “It doesn’t.” It’s quiet except for the buzzing fluorescent light overhead and Tony just wants to take his collapsible wrench out of his suit pocket and climb up there, get his hands dirty, and figure out what’s going on and _fix_ it. Add in a couple of flashing disco light maybe, Steve would like—

Tony skitters away from the thought and tries to focus on something else. Anything else. The light keeps on buzzing overhead.

Natasha’s phone vibrates and in a few moments, Tony can hear Clint’s tinny voice over the line, the words muddled by the distance. “Hmm,” Natasha says. “Don’t be crass, Barton. Just get the—“

Nick Fury steps into the room.

“Get the others back as soon as you can, Director’s here.” Natasha slides her phone back into a pocket. She gets up from her seat, cat-like, and stands at attention. Tony slouches a little more into his plastic chair.

“Agent Romanov, Stark,” Fury greets them both, filling up the entire room with his presence.

“Sir,” Natasha salutes. “Agent Barton, Dr. Banner and Thor are currently in a convenience store on Lexington and 30th. They’ll be back shortly.”

“Good.” Fury looks at them both and he looks old, far older than Tony has ever seen him before. There are lines on his face that haven’t been there last month; his beard is getting white and his shoulders looked bowed by a heavy weight. “He’s out of surgery and in the post anesthetic care unit. He should be in a regular hospital bed by morning.”

Tony drops the cup in his hand and watches it leak onto the blue linoleum floor. The puddle grows and grows, inching out from the epicenter of the cup. His watery reflection looks back at him, face impassive.

“Stark? Tony? Stark, answer me.”

Tony looks up and meets Nick Fury’s eye.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” he says and he’s so tired, he just wants to lie down and forget about everything, about the whole world, about Captain fucking America and just—

fuck.

“Yes.”

There’s a hand on his shoulder and it’s Natasha’s, Natasha super secret spymaster assassin Romanov, who never touches anyone except to cause bodily harm. He’s not yet sure whether she wants to break or comfort him. Maybe both.

“The entire team isn’t here yet—“

“Just fucking _tell_ me, Fury,” Tony spits out. The pool of coffee in the room has grown bigger—almost as big as the puddle of blood that Steve was lying in just hours ago.

“He’s dying.”


	3. as the eagle leaves the nest

_“I used to live in Williamsburg—funny how nice it’s become these days but before, it wasn’t exactly a place where you wanted to raise your kids. Everyone was mostly poor and hungry and it was tough. I remember a lot of the men would shoot down the pigeons they saw for a meal or something—it was pretty awful when I was growing up. So many people just sitting on the streets, lining up at the kitchens…Bucky’s ma, Mrs. Barnes, she even had to—“_

“Excuse me, Mr. Rogers?”

Steve looks up and smiles at the nurse, a little sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I must have drifted off. What did you say?”

“You have some visitors; a couple by the name of Clint and Natalie Rushman.”

Steve’s brow furrows for a moment before his face relaxes and he smooths down the blanket over his legs. “Oh, I’d very much love to see them. If it isn’t any trouble, could you send them in right away?”

“It’d be my pleasure, Mr. Rogers.” The nurse nods and ducks out, closing the door behind him.

“ _Mrs. Barnes, she even had to take up work for a florist. Business was slow and the only thing that sold were lilies, for the funerals. Bucky didn’t like it too much. Mrs. Barnes was always coming home late and with a dead husband, nothing you could do about it. Bucky, now he did all sorts of jobs—even robbed old Jimmy Jeans, the fellow who ran the junkyard. He was a nasty old drunk but Mrs. Barnes wouldn’t even think of spending the money. She frog marched him back to the yard and had him return every cent, even the bit he spent for peppermints. A real nice lady, she was—_ “

“—Steve, Steve, are you alright?”

He blinks and his vision clears, revealing a slightly blurry looking Natasha leaning over his bed; Clint is hovering behind her, back to the wall.

“I—hello, Natasha,” he says, pulling up a smile. “It’s good to see you. And you too, Clint.”

“Are you alright?” she asks, studying his face. Her gray-green eyes are unreadable and she steps back, away from him. “You seem to be a little out of it.”

“Oh, that,” Steve says off-handedly. “I think they gave me something for the pain—everything feels real swell right now.”

Natasha gives Clint a look he can’t quite decipher but it’s nothing new—they’re always looking at each other like that, all full of secrets and hidden meanings, like they’re just two parts of a same whole, like the distance between them is nothing but an illusion… Steve closes his eyes and swallows, Adam’s apple of his throat bobbing.

“How are you feeling?” Clint asks, arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh, great, really,” Steve says. “Just a little sore. You guys both come out okay?”

“Oh, we’re fine,” Natasha says dismissively. “Minor concussions and abrasions, nothing bad enough for emergency medical care. The team’s fine.”

“That’s good, that’s good…” There’s a long silence, heavy with unsaid words—and between one inhale and one exhale, he realizes that they _know_. They know about…about—

“Did Fury tell you?” he asks, his voice slow and tired.

“Yes.”

“Oh. I see.” He doesn’t know what else to say…what else _is_ there to say? I’m dying? The serum stopped working? I don’t have much longer to live? I wish I wasn’t? It’s all meaningless, in the end. There is only the truth and the ticking clock, counting down his seconds.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Clint asks, his voice even but Steve can hear the way his breathing changes, rough and shallow. (His hearing’s not gone. Not yet.)

“I didn’t know,” Steve lies, his eyes still closed. The fluorescent lights make them ache. “Until the doctors told me.”

“You’re either very brave or very stupid to lie to us like that, Rogers,” Natasha says, her voice silky smooth. “Or perhaps you are both.”

Steve makes an agreeing sort of noise. “Where’s everyone else?” Thankfully, they let him change the subject.

“Thor’s in the gym smashing everything to all hell, Bruce’s locked up in his lab and Tony’s down in his workshop, fiddling. They’d only let a limited people come in and visit.”

“Don’t forget, there’s a scheduled training session later tonight down in the—“

“How could you think about _training sessions_ right now?!” Clint barks. “That’s not important—what’s important is—“

Natasha raises a hand and cuts Clint off. “No, he’s right. We can’t afford to be weak now that we’re one member down. It would be our mistake to let our strength weaken when we are at our most vulnerable.”

Steve opens his eyes a crack and smiles gratefully at her. “Thank you.” Natasha nods curtly and claims a seat, Clint leaning back on the wall behind her. The minutes tick by, slowly, quietly and he loses track of how much longer he has left…

\---

The beer is cold and sticky in his hands—it’s sharp and sour in the back of his throat but he forces it down. “So,” he asks, his tongue a leaden weight. “How is he?”

Natasha gives him a quick glance out of the corner of her eyes and turns back to her Rubik’s cube. “Do you want the truth or lies?”

He thinks on it a moment too long. “Tell me everything,” he decides in the end and drops his empty can of beer over the side of the sofa.

“He can’t think straight, he’s half-asleep all the time while on morphine, reflexes are down, healing factor’s down, he’s lost about ten pounds, doctors say that—“

“Stop,” he rasps. “Stop it.”

“There is no avoiding reality,” Natasha says, her voice soft. “He’s dying, Tony.”

“You shut your fucking _mouth_ ,” Tony spits and pulls himself up from his seat, wavering a little. “He’s not—I’ll make it _better_ , I’ll fucking fix him—we can’t give up. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, do you understand me? Not ever again.”

Natasha stands up and for all that she’s six inches shorter than him, she seems to tower above him, her eyes chips of stone. “There is no escaping Death, Stark,” she says. “All your money and your genius—what is that in the face of the unchanging constants of the universe? He is dying. There is nothing we can do but let him go.”

“I _won’t_ ,” Tony swears. “I’ll never give up, okay? I’m Tony fucking Stark—I _make_ miracles for a fucking living. I can—I can build a cure, find something to fucking make him better, I can—I can—“ Natasha puts a gentle hand on his shoulder and pulls him close.

“Why—why—I don’t understand—“ Tony is shaking and it’s no longer a forty-year-old hero in front of Natasha but a little lost child, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “Why does it have to be _him_ —“

“Why do bad things happen to good people?” Natasha asks. “Why did the serum stop working? Why is he dying? Why is it _him_ and not us?”

“It’s not fair,” Tony says. “It’s not fucking _fair_.”

“No,” she says. “It isn’t. Not at all.”


	4. Chapter 4

Thor picks up the folder Natasha hands him, forehead creasing. “You called this meeting of minds in order to—“

“To discuss how we’re going to handle Steve’s return,” Natasha finishes for him, presiding over the head of the table. “JARVIS, holo-screen please.”

“Of course, ma’am.” A projection of the Stark mansion hovers mid-air, above the table, all the rooms clearly labeled in black.

“Thank you. Now, I understand that Steve’s…convalescence will be a new experience for all of us, Steve included. But that doesn’t mean it’s an impossible problem to handle. I’ve arranged for the medical team’s notes and files on Rogers and you should find a copy in your dossiers.” There is a flurry of rustling papers as everyone flips through their folders.

“As you can see, Steve is under strict orders not to lift anything weighing more than fifteen pounds, not to excessively strain himself, limited from sexual activity, a balanced diet, no alcohol—“ Natasha raises her brow as Bruce clears his throat.

“Yes, Banner?”

“I couldn’t help but look ahead—you’ve made a chart. On babysitting Steve,” he says, a little awkwardly.

“It is imperative that Steve is under supervision at all times—“

“What we’re going to treat him like—like some kind of _kid_ now?” Clint says, his voice low and hard. “He’s a soldier, he shouldn’t have to put with this bullshit—“

“Are you saying you don’t have the time to—“

Clint slices the air with the edge of his hand. “That’s not what I’m saying at all—I’m saying that he shouldn’t—“

“I agree with Clint,” Thor booms, slapping the table with a hand. “He is a warrior and has proved himself worthy. What need does he have of—“

“Natasha’s right,” Bruce says, raising his voice. “He’s sick and he _needs_ someone looking after him—“

Tony stands up from his seat, eyes glued to his phone. “Guys,” he says. “ _Guys_.”

“What!”

“Cap’s—Cap’s not in the hospital.”

“What does that mean?” Bruce asks, running a hand through his hair.

“It means he’s gone—he’s been discharged from the hospital,” Tony says, fingers flying on the tiny keyboard. “I’m pulling up records right now, Jesus fuck— come on, come on…“

Everyone waits in silence.

“Are you fucking kidding me? He fucking discharged _himself_ —can you believe that? He fucking signed the paperwork and _left_ the hospital and Fury didn’t even let us know.” Tony slumps back in his seat and tosses his phone onto the table. “He just left,” he says blankly. “He left without even telling us.”

“Avengers,” Natasha says, standing up and pulling out her gun. “Assemble.”

\---

It’s easier, when he’s alone. He doesn’t have to pretend, doesn’t have to force himself to wake up and hit the gym, doesn’t have to say, _It’s nothing_. He’s alone now and he has no one to lie to.

He settles down on the old couch he picked up a couple of months ago on the curb and idly picks at one of the cigarette burns on the armrest. It’s old and dirty, worn out at the edges and rubbed smooth by the years. They’re a pair, him and the couch. Old, abandoned, and so very, very tired…

Steve lets his head fall back and closes his eyes.

When he opens them a while later, Clint is perched on the armrest like a hawk, staring straight at his face.

“Hello,” Steve says politely and slowly gets up from his seat. Clint doesn’t move. “When did you get in here?”

“You left,” Clint says.

Steve tries not to sigh and makes his way over the kitchen, leaning on the wall. “Would you like something to drink?”

“You left the hospital by yourself,” Clint says, his eyes tracking Steve’s every movement. It feels a little awkward, to say the least.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Steve pulls open the fridge and peers inside—there’s a stick of butter, an empty carton of eggs and moldy blue cheese. He hadn’t exactly expected to be back so soon—most everything he had was still at the Mansion. He pulls a glass out of a cabinet and fills it up from the tap; the water is clear and cool in his mouth.

“Why did you leave?”

He puts the glass back in the sink and resolves to wash it later when he remembers where he put the spare sponges and dosh soap. He turns around, carefully, and sits down in front of the rickety kitchen table in the center of room. His stitches ache and burn with every breath—it feels strange. It feels…hot. He knows what it’s like to be hit by a bullet but not to have a bullet _wound_ , a constant pain in his side. He _didn’t_ , that is. He does now.

“Clint,” he says and when he looks up from the table, Clint is right in front of him leaning on the table. (His hearing’s going as well—he didn’t hear, he _couldn’t_ hear the other man move.) “I’m sorry for leaving without notice,” he apologizes. “But the team doesn’t need to concern itself with me—“

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Clint says, face stony.

Steve gives into the urge and sighs, long and low. “Please,” he says and it’s so hard to shape each word and let it fall from his mouth. “I’ve been discharged. I’m not—“

“Of course you’re discharged, you let yourself out of the damn hospital—“

“You don’t understand. I _quit_.”

Clint reels back like he’s been punched, eyes wide. “You—“

“I quit,” Steve repeats firmly. “Technically, I’m on medical leave but, as you can see…” He shrugs. “I’m not exactly going to be back. I’m not on the team anymore. I’m not part of SHIELD. I’m not Captain America. I’m just—Steve.” He was always Steve. “I really appreciate all of—your concern, honestly. But I think I would very much like to be alone right now.”

Clint gives him one last look before he walks out; the only thing that marks his passage is the faint smell of grease before even that too fades away and there is no one left but Steve, sitting at his table. “Just Steve,” he says again and the words fall to the ground, pebbles sinking in a pond.

He doesn’t say anything after that.

\---

“He’s done with us. Washed his hands clean.”

Natasha looks down at the table, eyes automatically picking out patterns; little whorls and grains in the wood—a puzzle to unlock, a code to learn, a game to win.

“He’s sick,” Bruce argues, drumming his fingers on the table, rat-tat-tat. Natasha can see the water in her glass hum in response. “Of course he’s going to shut everyone out.”

“You didn’t _see_ him,” Clint says, cracking his fingers, pop-pop-pop. “He’s—he’s—“ Barton has never been one for words. Natasha tilts her head and the picture underneath her comes to life, a whole menagerie of animals twining around each other…

“It’s like he’s wasting away right in front of us,” Clint finishes, his voice quiet. “He didn’t even wake up when walked inside the apartment. I thought—I thought he was dead. He just—I’ve never seen him like this.”

“With the effects of the Super Serum fading away, it’s expected,” Bruce says, his voice even, like it’s just another lab report. “We don’t know what exactly’s going on but from what it looks like, the enzymes that regulate cell division seem to have mutated—it’s a constant cycle of DNA degrading—“

“But that doesn’t explain why he’s so—so out of it.”

“He _was_ wounded, Clint. Bullet holes tend to be painful. They probably have him on pain killers…one happy side-effect is that the meds can actually take now.” Bruce’s voice turns thoughtful. “Now that his metabolism has slowed down and his healing factor is on par with—“

“But why’s _he dying_?” Clint demanded. “If—if the serum stopped working, why isn’t he just…turning normal?”

“…I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Bruce says.

Natasha blinks and the illusion disappears; there’s nothing both cold, hard reality. This is no place for fantasies. She rises from her seat and gives the two of them a curt nod. “Stark?”

Bruce shrugs. “He hasn’t left his workshop since the team meeting we had. I think he’s working on—well, you know.”

“And Thor?”

“With Jane.”

Natasha cracks her neck and the sound of her bones sliding against each other is oddly comforting. One wrong move and she could kill herself. Death is always close by, just a whisper behind her.

“We’ll set up a perimeter around his block then. Clint, since you’ve gone, it’s my turn. Set up Channel Three for emergency communications. Banner, you’re up next—Clint, would you mind hacking the traffic cams for him?”

Bruce starts and opens his mouth to protest but Natasha gives him a look. “He’s a member of our team, no matter what he says. We look after our own, Dr. Banner.”

He closes his mouth and sighs. “Alright. Let’s go stalk Captain America.”

Natasha smiles grimly. “If only it were that easy.”

\---

“Are you sure this is—“

“Just run your goddamn calculations JARVIS,” Tony snarls, slamming his toolbox down on the ground. “I didn’t fucking code you to give me backtalk.”

“…Of course, sir. Calculations running now, estimated time of completion: fifteen minutes.”

Tony clears off the holo-table out, dumping papers, cups, food, robots—everything went on the floor. It isn’t important. He doesn’t need it. He has real work to do.

“Alright, alright,” Tony says, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see how easy it is to hack into every hospital database in the world.”

\---

_“I’m very sorry, Mr. Rogers. But you only have…”_

The bottle of pills is sitting on the nightstand, orange-yellow in the light of the lamp. He can see the big blue pills, now a hazy orange through the plastic film. Just one, he could take just _one_ and it wouldn’t hurt anymore, he could just lie down and sleep and…

Steve shakes his head. It almost feels like he’s sleeping away all the time he has left—he’s already slept through a century. He doesn’t want to sleep the rest of his short life away. He picks up the pencil and sketchpad at his side and tries to concentrate on the smooth angles of Tony’s face, all shadows and hidden smiles...His grip falters and the pencil slips, leaving a harsh and jagged streak across Tony’s eyes.

_“We’re not exactly sure…your cells are aging and mutating at a rate that we can’t exactly…your enhanced senses, your strength, increased healing factor, fine motor control…I’m very, very sorry, Mr. Rogers.”_

A month ago he snapped a pencil just like this in half without even thinking about it. Today—today he doesn’t enough have enough strength to hold one properly. He puts both pad and pencil down on the nightstand and leans back in his bed, head against the wall. Everything that was Captain America is slipping out his grasp, like sand falling to the ground…now there’s nothing left but little old skinny Steve from the streets…and his best pal…

Steve closes his eyes. Perhaps sleep was a better option after all. He reaches out with his arm and picks up the bottle, uncapping it with his thumb. Just one, just for tonight.

\---

“Banner, what’s the emer—“

“How is he?” Tony says tersely, words barely audible over the loud slurp of coffee.

“Tony,” Bruce says, disapproval dripping from every syllable. “The comm. is for emergencies only.”

“This _is_ an emergency. I need to know how he is.” There a slam and Bruce assumes that the mug off coffee met a rather unfortunate end with the wall.

“He’s—unchanged,” Bruce sighs. “Sleeping.”

“Has he eaten—watched TV—done anything else?”

“When Natasha covered the shift, she says she saw him order some takeout. It’s still on the table.”

There’s a long pause and Bruce can hear the soft whirr of gears working in the background and the quiet humming of the servers in Tony’s shop. “It’s just there?” Tony asks, his voice rough.

“Yeah,” Bruce confirms.

“But, he always cleans up —“

“I know,” Bruce says gently, leaning on the control pad. “But he’s not, you know, in the best shape right now.”

“Jesus,” Tony breathes and there’s a harsh bark of laughter. “Jesus fucking Christ. Three days ago we were saving the world. Now Steve’s—Steve’s—he’s—we’re looking at his fucking window in his shitty Brooklyn apartment just to see if he ate and went to the bathroom. What the fuck?”

“…have you read the reports?” Bruce asks carefully. “This didn’t just happen—it’s been weeks, maybe months in the making. And he’s been hiding it all this time.”

“Fucking Captain America,” Tony says raggedly and Bruce has to agree. “Who’s next in line? Don’t tell me it’s me.”

“Sorry, Stark,” Bruce says apologetically, adjusting the earpiece. “But Natasha assigned this hours ago and—“

“Just get Thor to pull double duty, he’s a fucking God. He can handle it. I have work to down here.”

“Alright,” Bruce says slowly. “But if you catch shit from Natasha, I was never here.”

“Wimp,” Tony returns easily, but the quip falls flat. “Watch over him, alright?”

“Avenger’s honor,” Bruce promises.


End file.
